In law enforcement it is often necessary for enforcement officers to be able to control persons under arrest when those persons are in public situations. For example, it is typical for enforcement officers to escort such persons into and out of a court of law, in order to ensure that such persons do not take any actions that may disturb the order of, or that may cause harm or danger to anyone in, the court. Heretofore, this kind of control has been accomplished in several different ways, ranging from dressing persons under arrest in brightly colored uniforms so as to alert others to such persons' presence, to placing them in handcuffs, shackles, and similar restraints in order to restrict their movement. Each of these efforts has been employed in order to assist the enforcement officers in their efforts of keeping the peace and maintaining the safety in a courtroom, however, they are all visually obvious to those in the courtroom, which has raised concerns about maintaining a person's innocence to and through trial, as such a visual display of incarceration may have an impact on the opinions of jury members, reporters, and members of the public as to whether those persons are innocent or guilty.
A further concern exists as to the methods of control that may be used by enforcement officers when the need to control a person under arrest arises in public situations. For example, it is often unnecessary for such officers to utilize deadly force to control a person under arrest, making the use of firearms undesirable in many instances where control is necessary, especially when in a crowded public area. Other conventional weapons, such as clubs, pepper spray and Taser-type electroshock weapons, which are effective means of control in many situations, are wholly dependent upon the skill of the person using them and may also be impractical or impossible to use in certain crowded public situations. Moreover, the officer using these other conventional weapons must be relatively close to the person under arrest in order for them to be effective, which presents a danger that they will be taken away from, and used against, the officer or turned on a member of the public. Additionally, it may become necessary for an enforcement officer to physically overpower a person under arrest in order to regain control over that person, which can result in injuries to that person that are unintended by the officer, as well as injuries to the officer and to bystanders, all as unintended effects of the need to physically overpower such a person.
An additional challenge for law enforcement officers arises when transporting large numbers of persons under arrest to and through public areas. There is a need to maintain control over each of these persons during transport, but it is often undesirable or impractical to have an equal number of guarding officers as persons being transported. It thus becomes necessary for one officer to maintain control over several such persons for the entirety of the time of transport, so that they do not present a danger of escape or harm to each other, the officers, or the public at large. Similar control problems as those described above can arise in these situations, as it may be impractical to place each person in restraints or brightly colored uniforms, and it may be impossible for the outnumbered officers to maintain control of these persons in the event the same becomes necessary.